The UIC Historic Renovation and Addition Featured in STL Jewish Light is in the attached article. The project was completed in 2022. It is a renovation and addition to a historic, one-story bungalow in The Grove. The article in STL Jewish Light is an interview with our amazing clients and a chronicle of the design / build process.

Our clients were looking for a “new adventure” having decided that they would sell their home in the Central West End. Their approach to this home was similar to their home in CWE – not in style, but in commitment to the typology. They put a lot of thought and detail into the CWE home restoration and vowed to do the same for their new home in The Grove. Wanting a contemporary design, they worked with UIC to design the home to complement their extensive art collection. Additionally, they needed functional day-to-day space that was easy to maintain.

https://stljewishlight.org/news/news-local/draft-couples-modern-home-in-the-grove-keeps-a-link-to-old-st-louis/

To be contemporary is to belong to or to occur in the present . If we consider this literally, even architectural design in historic neighborhoods must have been considered contemporary at a certain point in time. However, when architects are asked to design buildings within historic St.Louis neighborhoods today, we find even uttering the word “contemporary” casts a shadow of disdain on a project – regardless of how carefully many of it’s features follow the standards and respect the proportions of historic context. We find ourselves being asked to revert back to contemporary architecture of the late 1800s and early 20th century. Jessica Deem’s article in Next STL questions the requirements for trying to replicate architectural history in new construction. One of our projects is featured as a proposed work of contemporary architecture in the Benton Park Neighborhood in St.Louis and the article describes the process we went through to have the building approved.

As of the time of posting this article, the project was approved by the St.Louis Preservation Board, largely due to a number of neighborhood residents that came out in support of the project and of thriving, interesting, and growing neighborhoods in general. The approval was overturned at the next meeting of the Preservation Board, but we have resolved some of the issues with the neighborhood and are fairly confident that the design of the building will remain intact.